MENA House: Changing of the President in Egypt?

EA is pleased to announce a new feature, "MENA (Middle East-North Africa) House". Complementing Ali Yenidunya's "Middle East Inside Line", MENA House will give you the latest on politics and society from Cairo through Tripoli to Casablanca.



In the first entry, Christina Baghdady takes a look at political developments that raise the prospect of change in the Egyptian system:

Middle East Inside Line: Gaza Tension; Palestinian State by 2011?; Israel's Hebron Show

According to state media reports, President Hosni Mubarak has returned to Egypt after surgery at Heidelberg Hospital in Germany three weeks ago. On Saturday, dozens of senior officials, including the newly-appointed top Sunni cleric Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, Coptic Orthodox Pope Shenouda III, and intelligence chief Omar Suleiman welcomed the President and his wife Suzanne in the Red Sea resort of Sharm El Sheikh.


State reports claim that Mubarak was undergoing an operation to remove his gall bladder and remove a "benign" tumour of his duodenum. However, commentators are debating whether it is something more serious, giving the length of time that Mubarak spent in hospital.

While Mubarak was away from the motherland, there was an air of anxiety, "What will happen if Mubarak does not return?" Abdel Aziz Husseini, spokesman for the protest movement Kefaya, told Reuters, "Egypt is witnessing a period of instability and the president's absence, especially for health reasons and surgery, has heightened people's worries."

Now that Mubarak is back on home turf, the question is "What will happen next?" The President has neither confirmed nor denied whether he will be running for a sixth term, and little light has been shed on other potnential candidates. Whilst critics of the Mubarak regime claim that his son, Gamal,is being groomed to be the future President of Egypt, Gamal has repeatedly and vehemently denied such claims.

Now an underdog candidate has entered the limelight: Mohammed El Baradei, founder of the pro-reform coalition, the National Association for Change (NAC), Nobel Peace Prize winner, and former director of the International Atomic Energy Agency. He received a hero’s welcome at the airport on his return to Egypt and appeared to have galvanised a stale opposition movement. However, he has said he would only run for the top job if there were changes in the Constitution with the amendment of election regulations.

El Baradei is showing signs of flexing his political muscles with a sustainable and legitimate opposition party. According to Hamdi Qandil, the media spokesman for the pro-constitutional reform movement, El Baradei is currently looking for an office in downtown Cairo to host meetings with politicians and activists. The aim of this: to unite all opposition, including the Muslim Brotherhood.

On 31 March, Ikhwan Web (the official Muslim Brotherhood website) stated that El Baradei and Saad el Katatni, the head of the Muslim Brotherhood’s parliamentarian bloc, met and came to an agreement that political change was needed to enact widespread reforms. In a recent interview Muslim Brotherhood leader Abdel Moneim Abul Fotouh claimed that it is "haram" (forbidden) to vote for the National Democratic Party (NDP), the President’s political party. He said that the Brotherhood is a popular and political force in a corrupt and tyrannical atmosphere and a political society that deals with everyone through security forces.

Comments

[rezvan]

It is good that EA at last is giving a platform to Egypt's opposition movement. The state of politics in Cairo is even worse than in Tehran and of course Egypt is after Israel, the largest recipient of US aid. On a recent visit to the Giza pyramids just outside Cairo, I was shocked to see the poverty and squalor in the areas surrounding one of the world's premier tourist destinations which brings in massive revenue for the Egyptian government but none of which seems to have been spent into improving the lives and look of the neighbourhood. Most tourists unfortunately come in tour buses complete their tours and depart without ever having sight of the squalor surrounding these magnificent sights. American and other tourists should be asking the Egyptian authorities why they do not spend the massive revenues they receive in improving lives of these neighbourhoods.

[Josh]

Bravo :)

Love it.

[Catherine]

Great new addition! Thank you.

RE "El Baradei is currently looking for an office in downtown Cairo to host meetings with politicians and activists. The aim of this: to unite all opposition, including the Muslim Brotherhood."

Wow. If El Baradei is reaching out to all the opposition, including the MB, he must be serious about running in the election. This is the only way he can obtain enough clout to attempt constitutional change (via the parliament, right?). I hope the MB move doesn't backfire on him. All the Egyptians I know here (The Hague) are totally in the tank for El Baradei, from tailors to students.

[Mona HARES]

Poor Rezvan and poor Josh! Hav'nt you seen all other achievements? Being ignorant doesn't give you the right to criticize in a negative manner

[Kouki]

Mona, I'm not sure whether your comment was genuine or sarcastic. Please feel free to elaborate...

Catherine: Al Baradeii is an interesting opposition but does he have the experience? Also, al Baradeii seems to be the only other 'realistic' contender to be president simply for his position in the UN-his 'open mindedness'. Once your back on Egyptian turf though, the game changes completely. So...

Rezvan: Yes-you've hit it on the nail! it's all political manoevering to get the MB behind him. But-so often (in particular since the revolution) the MB have been used as political backing until the political party gets what it wants. Will the MB ever learn?

[Catherine]

Kouki,
RE "Al Baradeii is an interesting opposition but does he have the experience?"

That's exactly what everyone said about Barack Obama when he started his campaign. :-)

I think your reply to Rezvan about the MB was directed at my post, as Rezvan didn't say a thing about the MB. I'm curious about where the MB is now in terms of their desire to participate in the political process after they've been repeatedly denied despite having undergone drastic policy reforms. Do you have any insight on that?

[Catherine]

@ the new person who will be writing this thread
Welcome! I would be very interested in coverage of Egyptian civil rights activists, bloggers, ' Arab street' topics, Egypt-Gaza topics, and of course El Baradei's moves to consolidate the opposition.

[Catherine]

Where is that edit feature when one needs it (ie se veral times a day)? :-)
My last post should have been addressed to Christina Baghdady. Sorry, I forget your name was way up at the top.

[kouki]

Catherine-all those topics will be covered in this section so watch this space...

p.s the MB is still the same as it was many yrs ago. in fact the brother of the founder of the MB (hassan al banna) is completely against the MB today. not because of its reforms...but because of its backwardness in both the religious and political sense.

[Catherine]

Kouki,
Thanks.
I'm confused - are you and Christina the same person using different names or are you both going to be writing this thread together?

[kouki]

1 and the same...